Jolt Country

My wife is having our second child next week. That means a) six weeks off work and b) I won't be sleeping much for that six weeks. Happily, Paste Magazine, about which I know nothing, produced a list of the top 100 film noirs recently:

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2 ... e.html?a=1

If I was exiled to a desert island and could only take one film genre along -- it'd be film noir. So my goal: to watch (or re-watch, as the case may be) as many of these as I can. In my lifetime, I've seen around 45 of these, but not many in recent memory -- in the last year or two, I've seen Chinatown (#4), Le Samourai (#50, and arguably my favorite film), and The Long Goodbye (#51).

I'm sorta watching alongside my brother and an old friend, so I'm sorta going in order bottom-up (though I already started with #93, so that's blown). Until I lose steam in the project or lose interest in writing about it, I'll share my thoughts here, and everyone can tell me I'm a moron.

Ha ha, I already fucked up and double-posted.

#93 -- "The Naked City," 1948

I started here because I'd just watched another Jules Dassin film ("Brute Force," which is far superior) and I was on a roll. It's a weird way to jump in because as flexible a term as noir may be, this doesn't seem to fit. Conflicted characters? No. Moral ambiguity? No. The only thing it has in common with what I think of as "noir" of the era is a lot of fedoras.

It's a fun film, don't get me wrong, and it's very good-looking -- shot on location in NYC, it looks very different from most movies of the era. There are a few fantastic performances -- all on the police side, really making this more of a police procedural than anything you'd consider noirish.

Dassin's most famous film is probably "Rififi," which came a few years later and is similar to this in a lot of ways: nice-looking but a whole lot of waiting around for a few good stretches. This is a nice little film but not very compelling, and I'm a lot less excited than I normally would have been for the other Dassin film on the list.

Here's the ones I've seen:

89. The Usual Suspects
87. Dark City
84. Se7en
75. Memento
72. Zodiac
63. Fargo
52. Mulholland Dr.
43. Taxi Driver
29. Blade Runner

I enjoyed all of those, and I look forward to checking out a few more films on the list!

#99 -- "Hard Eight," 1996

Somehow, this is the first Paul Thomas Anderson film I've ever seen. I'm glad to hear that his later work is worthwhile, because this kind of sucked!

It's an expansion on a previous short film, apparently, and it feels like it. The meat of the movie is all packed into the last third -- prior to that, it's just a series of events, with nothing propelling the movie.

There are some nice shots, and Philip Baker Hall is great, but having seen some better films that were left off ... well, someone making this list had a big PTA boner, I suspect.

gsdgsd wrote:#99 -- "Hard Eight," 1996

Somehow, this is the first Paul Thomas Anderson film I've ever seen. I'm glad to hear that his later work is worthwhile, because this kind of sucked!

Well, if you think Hard Eight "sucked", you may not like much of his other work either.

However, I'm in the "PTA Boner Club", so my opinion doesn't count for much.

pinback wrote:However, I'm in the "PTA Boner Club", so my opinion doesn't count for much.

Everyone's opinion counts here, pinback.

Well, if you think Hard Eight "sucked", you may not like much of his other work either.

"kind of sucked." Let's quote accurately.

But, yeah. Not much happening 'til the end, forced and stilted dialogue. Some nice performances, but some really poorly-defined characters (Clementine in particular). I'm comfortable with "kind of sucked."

Let's turn to... AN OPINION:

Someone Else wrote:Nothing turns me into an horrible asshole faster than an overly-expansive definition of Film Noir!

1. It is a genre (I refuse to acknowledge those whiners who insist that it is a "style") within a specific historic period (although DON'T EVEN get me started on those "1940-1958" dickbags)

2. It has to be in black and white (sorry, Leave Her to Heaven! I love you but you are a melodrama!)

3. It has to be American-made (sorry Marcel Carne! You are also great but, y'know... French.)

Weirdly the article touches on all of the reasons why the above are IRREFUTABLE TRUTHS and then is all like [I am saying this in a high pitched voice and making 'spirit fingers'] "Chinatown in some way resembles a good movie!"

I mean, JESUS!

> :(

When something doesn't mean anything, it can mean anything!